In the 1980s, it wasn't just Necrodeath and Bulldozer making waves with raw black/thrash. The Sicilian band SCHIZO was also becoming known for blackened thrash in the old-school vein. Formed in 1984 in the city of Catania, their style leaned a little more toward heavy thrash than did those other two giants of Italian black/thrash. But make no mistake, it was still an old school black/thrash.
Off of the 1986 demo Total Schizophrenia
With demos such as 1985's Thrash the Unthrashable - Thrash to Kill!, 1986's Total Schizophrenia, and 1987's Main Frame Collapse, Schizo's black/thrash sound spread far and wide in the metal underground. Then in 1989, they released the cult album Main Frame Collapse (not the same as the demo, obviously).
From 1989's Main Frame Collapse
Schizo continued releasing albums into the 1990s, but (inexplicably) never really became as widely known as Necrodeath. They are still around to this day, putting out albums. Their most recent, 2010's Hallucinating Cramps, is more straightforward thrash (think later Sodom or Destruction) than black/thrash.
Select Discography
Thrash the Unthrashable - Thrash to Kill!!! (demo) (1985)
Rehearsal (demo) (1986)
Total Schizophrenia (demo) (1987)
Main Frame Collapse (demo) (1987)
Main Frame Collapse (full-length album) (1989)
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Pescara's REQUIEM started out as an occult-obsessed blackened/doom metal band before gradually becoming a progressive-sounding doom metal band. They put out some very hard to find demos--1986's Nunc et Semper and 1987's Per Aspera--before releasing studio albums such as 1988's Ex Voto EP and 1990's Via Crucis. By the time of those albums, the shift away from black metal was very noticeable. The band broke up in 1995, with some members going on to form the doom metal band The Black.
This is off of the 1986 demo, Nunc et Semper
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The Hellhammer-influenced BLACK PROPHECIES formed in 1988. Coming from the area near Genoa, their style was really raw and primitive. Their first demo, 1988's Azathoth, was really vile-sounding with awful production--in other words, perfect visceral old-school black metal. After that initial demo, they only put out two other demos before breaking up.
"Mass of the Undead" is from their first demo
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While Italy's scene in the 1980s had other noteworthy bands--like INFERNALIA, CENOTAPH, POSTRIBULUM, and FUNERAL ORATION--there have been a few old-school black metal bands that went on to international renown. I will make separate entries for bands like Opera IX, Winged, and Sinoath at a later date. But as a final note on this entry on the early Italian scene, I have to mention DEATH SS. They're one of those bands that is definitely extreme metal, but don't really fall into one genre or another.
Death SS--from the city of Pesaro--formed in 1977. They performed a brand a music that might properly be called occult-themed horror metal. With their early releases (1981's Horned God of the Witches demo, 1982's "Zombie/Terror" and "Night of the Witch" singles, 1983's "Profanation" single, and the 1983 Evil Metal EP), one can hear the influence of all the heavy metal and hard rock pioneers of the seventies like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Kiss, and Alice Cooper. Their methodical, almost doom-like music featured a raw guitar sound, and vocals that were primal yet not screeched.
The demo track "Terror" from 1981
The band members adopted stage names that were drawn from horror and the occult, such as The Death, The Vampire, The Mummy, The Zombie, and The Werewolf. Their lyrical content was--not surprisingly--heavy on evil, Satanism, the occult, and horror movies. Some of the members were actual Crowleyans (members of OTO), and this clearly influenced their song-writing.
"Chains of Death" is from their 1983 EP, Evil Metal
To my mind, the sound of Death SS changed somewhat with their first two proper studio albums. On 1988's In Death of Steve Sylvester and (to a greater degree) on 1989's Black Mass, their sound became less steeped in the seventies styles of the above-mentioned bands, and began to resemble the extreme metal sounds of the 1980s, like speed and thrash metal. In this regard, one could consider these two albums (especially Black Mass) important releases in the history of old-school black metal. In the 1990s, Death SS shifted styles away from an old-school occult/black/speed metal to something with a heavy electronic/industrial feel to it.
From the outstanding album, 1989's Black Mass
Select Discography
The Horned God of the Witches (demo) (1981)
"Zombie/Terror" (single) (1982)
"Night of the Witch" (single) (1982)
"Profanation" (single) (1983)
Evil Metal EP (1983)
The Story of Death SS Vol. 2 (demo/compilation) (1987)
In Death of Steve Sylvester (full-length album) (1988)
Black Mass (full-length album) (1989)
Next time: ROOT
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